Sunday, May 1, 2011

Hopsin, SGF, Stitchmouth and more at the Muse

After last month's awesome ABK show at the Muse where SGF was an opener, I was really happy to see that SGF had another show coming up as an opener for Hopsin. I also noticed that local underground legend Stitchmouth was on the bill, which was awesome since I'd been wanting to see him for a while too. I went out with a guy recently who seemed more interested in bad mouthing Stitchmouth during our date than actually getting to know me, so it made me want to catch one of Stitch's performances all the more! haha

After a full morning of baking up two dozen of my almost-famous Faygo Moon Mist cupcakes, I headed out to pick up my friends Pamela and Nick, who were joining me for the show (or I was joining them, however you want to look at it!). After a quick stop by the venue to pick up some presale tickets from a guy named Sweet Tooth in an almost drug deal-like transaction, we headed off for lunch at El Mariachi. Two chimichangas and a plate of nachos later, we were back at the venue, well in advance of when the doors were to open.

After a few minutes of careful blood drip application, we were ready for the show.

All set for the show!

Once we were ready to go in, the doors still weren't open, so we had to hang around outside for a while. The vibe was really different than what we were expecting as well. Lots of people were there dressed in club wear, and there was even one guy in a sweater vest! haha Not the crowd we were hoping for, though we had an inkling that the crowd might turn lame since it was announced on the radio that Lil Wyte was playing at that show too. Oh well.

The first performer on the bill was Stitchmouth. What a frickin' travesty to have him be the first person on this bill! Especially considering how terrible a few of the bands after him were! This dude was awesome, and definitely should have performed much further into the night just so there would have been more people there! We missed about half of his set because we couldn't even tell that he'd gone on yet!

Stitch just dripped with everything that is violent and angry about underground music. And as Pamela says, he only came across as "a little bit satanic-y. Just a smidgen." hahaha

Looking intense...too bad we missed so much of the set

Next up was this joker, who was very, very obviously lip syncing!! Like, he was missing entire lines that were in his voice, then putting the mic up to his mouth for the last word or two, like no one would notice! I was embarrassed for him.

But what I didn't get was why the rest of the guys in the group were singing for real, and only the one guy was lip syncing. In any event, they sucked, and we went outside about halfway through their set.

Next up...Nick Rage. Not bad. Average. Passable.

I felt sorry for them though since there were literally 8 people in the venue watching them

Once Nick Rage was done, it was time for someone else I'd never heard of, so we went outside to hang out for a while. While we were there, we pondered how the crowd just didn't feel like we were expecting. When you're at a completely underground show, the whole crowd is really friendly, and everyone is having a good time. But for this show, it really did seem like there were two groups of people there...the Juggalos (who were having fun), and everyone else (who were picking fights with each other and acting like hookers) haha. And the Juggalos were out numbered by far! Since I still had two dozen cupcakes hanging out in the car, I decided to just go get them and hand them out to anyone I saw that I could tell was fam.

So, I went out to the car and brought back a dozen cupcakes, and the second I walked back onto the patio with the box (with its Faygo Moon Mist label), every lo and lette in the area was instantly like "WOAH! Faygo cupcakes?!?! Can I have one??" I gave out the first dozen within the first three or four minutes that I was there, and everyone seemed to love them! And it was so, so funny to watch all these other random people who were obviously not fam see me giving out these cupcakes, but me not offer them any haha. I was definitely giving off a "keep your hands up off my cupcakes unless you're fam" vibe hahaha

With the first dozen gone, I ran back to the car and got the other dozen and brought them back. I gave one to the girl at the bar, and one to Stitch...almost offered Hopsin one since he was just standing around with everyone, but I didn't get up the nerve. I know...I should have. I ended up chatting with a group of folks who are also from the Madison/Rivergate area, and it was great to meet even more local people who I can expect to see at shows. It's been awesome to have made so many new friends through this genre of music.

Finally it was time for one of the main events, SGF! These guys really killed it at the ABK show, so I knew that they'd really get the crowd going.

Awesome SGF tattoo (which I found out stands for "Spewing Guttural Fragments" haha)

All four guys

The other side of this guy's head was completely tattooed...wish I'd gotten a photo of it!

Near the end of the set, SGF called Stitch back on stage for a song, which was awesome. The crowd was so into it...it was great.

Up next was someone else we didn't know, so we all went back outside again. Once again, I ended up sitting with the Madison people, and after a while, most of the patio cleared out as people went inside to watch Lil Wyte.

I had never heard his music, but I had heard some pretty bad things about it, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It ended up being very not my thing, in an overrated mainstream sort of way. Since this was the main act that the "polos and micro tank tops" crowd was there to see, it didn't surprise me AT ALL that a fight broke out during his set. They had to stop the music and wait for all the white trash to stop throwing beer bottles at each other before they could start performing again. That mess doesn't happen at Juggalo shows. I didn't really get any good pics during his set, but I didn't really care either. But I did manage to watch almost the entire set with Hopsin standing right next to me, which was cool!

Finally, it was time for the main event...Hopsin and Swizzz! Well, after a long time of listening to a DJ, who was actually pretty good. It was funny to watch all the Lil Wyte people leave in a mass exodus, while all the Juggalos were filtering back in.

Check out the white eyes!

I'm not all that versed in Hopsin's music, but I could really see me getting into him. He had a lot of really fun songs, and he was very animated all through his performance.

Hopsin and Swizzz

OMG his EYEEEEEZZZ!!! So freaky!

After the show, everyone slowly started to head out for the night. It was definitely an interesting show, and I'm very glad that I decided go, and even more glad that I decided to make my cupcakes to share! haha I'm glad that people liked them, and was glad to put some smiles on some peoples faces.

For those of you that are interested, here's the recipe for the Faygo Moon Mist cupcakes!

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients and the oil together, then mix the eggs in one by one. Once all the eggs are in, mix in the Moon Mist and the extracts gradually. Bake until they are done (my oven takes 28 minutes). Makes about 30 regular sized cupcakes.

Frosting1/2 cup butter or margarine1/2 cup vegetable shortening4 cups powdered sugarZest and juice of 2 limesSplash of lemon and orange extractsAdd a little water if you need to thin it out

That's enough frosting for a relatively thin layer. If you like a big mound of frosting, you'll probably want to double that recipe.

Next show...Stone Temple Pilots, which in real life took place the very next day from this show!